Nadu and Power Creep
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- čas přidán 29. 06. 2024
- Tomer delves deep into the current issues with Commander design, as highlighted by Nadu, Winged Wisdom.
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#MTG #MagicTheGathering #commander
00:00 Lazy Card Draw + Ramp Design
06:19 Nadu & Commander
08:44 Commander's Early Appeal
12:36 WOTC Designs For Commander
14:10 Brawl
17:00 Everything Is Commander
19:28 Hasbro
20:40 Firehose Release Schedule
22:51 F.I.R.E. Design
25:09 The Problems With Current Design
31:06 More Cards Less Brewing Options Paradox
36:42 Conclusion - Hry
![Yu-Gi-Oh! - Chimera [Phantom Beast] Archetype](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/MxjEc5uosRI/mqdefault.jpg)
Bring back cards with drawbacks. It makes you feel clever working around the drawback, and adds a real impact to card selection.
Exactly this, cards these days are all upside which just makes the game more one sided and easier to play.
Yep, agree 100%
What about that 4 mana 6/6 oily flier.
Also the lovely Song of Creation.
There are less, but they still exist.
definitely. it makes me feel so cool finding something that's drawback negating other drawbacks(new necro turns off death triggers, there are some cards with negative death triggers)
how do i give this comment more thumbs up? can i give more than 1?
"nothing is exciting anymore". yeah that sums it up for me. i remember when i actually used to look forward to spoilers.
Love your content mate!
Let's all stick together and create a 2020 Pre format 😂
@edhdeckbuilding this take sounds a lot like your take a week ago. The soft rotation and being tired of constantly updating your deck. Btw, big fan of the channel!
@@weeklyweeks7545 indeed, i was getting deja vu watching this.
@@nelsikegamingpreDH is a format for 2011 and before. So i dont think before 2020 would be super useful. But hey go for.
The F.I.R.E design was so strong it removed at least 15 deck boxes behind Tomer @22:50
I can’t breathe ahahah
*Tomer packing for Amsterdam* I just need a few of my favorite decks...
No one at a commander table at my LGS knows what everyone else's cards do anymore. It's absolutely the case of what Tomer mentioned. We just mostly ignore each other's boards until we need to boardwipe to keep the boardstate simpler.
The “More cards less brewing options paradox” section really hit home. Because there are SO many cards that are designed for exactly what we are trying to do, even our own home “brews” are becoming pre-cons. Ooof…
Holy shit I didn't realize prosper had double the amount of decks than the next leading rakdos commander.
One of the best precon commanders in a while and he's just fun to play. So not surprising. Ob nix should be more popular though
Came for the bird hat. Stayed for the bird hat but also the discussion about card design
im gonna delete my comment because this deserves to be top comment hahaha
Tomer looks adorable.
I didn't notice the hat was a chicken. Yes I play mono green in commander, how could you tell?
The best part of this is how you didn’t even mention the fact that just five or six years ago a 3/4 for 3 with flying without a drawback was pretty crazy in and of itself
Feather the redeemer came out 5 years ago!! I feel so old
"Firehose product" is entirely why I stopped giving any semblance of a shit about spoiler seasons.
I actually buy almost no new product anymore, I used to buy multiple boxes of a set when it came out.
Exactly my experience too.
Yep
Yep, it was totally feasible to get excited for and buy tons of each set when they were 3 months apart with nothing in between and also when the sets were super well designed for standard.
I miss sets like Innistrad, OG Zendikar, Alara, Khans, Return to Ravnica.... Everything now is so unbalanced becasue of edh and too... sterile... too "on rails"... and too punny.
That's kinda the business model they have though. Everything is more powerful than the previous set, meaning it's always "the best time to jump in", then you stick around for a few sets and realize you can't afford to keep playing so seriously.
Its hard to get excited about a new thing, when theres a new thing every month.
Regarding deck building freedom, I would say personally my enjoyment of deckbuilding has shifted to 1) not using expensive staples and 2) now that some archetypes have a bunch of cards printed for them, the "autobuilt best deck" is often more than 100 cards, so the deck building becomes more about deck culling to stylize the deck in your own way.
Not saying this is the best way or enjoyable for everyone. But in some ways, the old deckbuilding used to have even more staples because there werent as many oddly specific synergy pieces that would work better in your deck than a basic staple.
"Quickly moving away from the original appeal of Commander"? We are already beyond what the original idea of EDH was.
And it's getting worse by the year
Yeah, it's no longer fun to sit down a table with strangers and play a game.
They should have never designed commander specific cards
@@TheEvolver311I mostly agree with this, though I do think there are a lot of cards and design space around making cards that work better/only really work in multiplayer. Like Goad just wouldn't exist without "making commander cards". And even if they're auto-includes in almost every deck, I do really appreciate Command Tower and Arcane Signet.
@TheEvolver311 I agree that your suggestion would have been healthier for the game, but I think that the second money was a possibility they were inevitably going to exploit it to death
Kaldra Compleat is already the conclusion of your "Kaldra slippery slope" example. It exists.
Its crazy that on top of its incredibly pushed ability, it even has improved stats for its cost 💀
The brawlification of commander definitely seems to be the intent from wizards, great observation!
I haven't played Magic in about 6 years. Back in the day, I played predominantly cEDH, but I stopped playing about a year after the "Fire" design philosophy started in the original Eldraine set.
And back then, I felt everything that you're saying in this video.
- Fire design causes rotation
- Wizards were getting greedier
- The new "reserve list" with Universes Beyond licensing
- The massively increased release schedule
- The impact of surprise power crept cards on casual games.
- The rules committee being far to passive with the banlist.
One of my most hated cards ever printed is Jeweled Lotus. That card sucks, so, much. In a casual game, if you have that in your opening hand, you just win. Watching people get their commander out 3 turns earlier than anyone else at the table, well before anyone else at the table was ready for it, just sucks.
And there have been more egregious cards since then.
Cards like Chulane was also just a mistake. Any card that ramps and draws carda at the same time just make the game way too easy.
And lastly, having only one card banned in the past 6 years give me no hope for the rules committee doing anything for the health of the format.
Only thing I disagree with is this card being legendary for commander reasons only - if this was not legendary it would be unbelievable
I agree with Tomer that Commander was created with the mindset that it was supposed to be casual. That you could run ANYTHING, and you would be fine. The problem with the concept itself that I just recently learned from interviewing thousands of magic players is that there is nothing defining what a "casual deck" really is. Yes, we have the deck ranking system that has changed many times over the years. But again, that is always up to interpretation. Some would say "my deck is about a 5 or a 6. Very casual. Only 4 combos, and I run just a couple tutors to get to them. But it doesnt go off until like turn 7 or 8." And you would get others that would say "my deck is about a 6 or a very low seven. I run no combos, no tutors, very little ramp, and my win con is combat damage." These are just two examples of the differences on how people perceive what "casual" means. I feel, the best way to solve this, is to start assigning power points to cards themselves. It wouldnt be very painstaking at all. Most card databases like Moxfield and TappedOut already have this function, the number would just need to be assigned. Depending on the total points of your deck, it would indicate what power level your deck would be at. For example, anything combo related would be assigned a high value, as the more combos you add to a deck, the less and less of a "casual" deck you have. Same with tutors. This would take away any guesswork from the player who would say "I run a very casual Nadu deck".
This would be trickier than you might think.
Combos are the perfect example for this. I have no idea how many cards currently make a combo with kikijiki but i personaly just use it to recur etbs. So would that make him a high value card? Or does a combo have to be in the deck in full? The other side is that many other combo cards are subpar to straight up bad if used outside of combos so where would their value be?
All in all i think going with something like the canadian highlander system were only superpowered cards have a limiting value or, even better just seperating high and low power commander (not talking avout cedh, they got themselves worked out) including banlists and potential rulechanges (maybe allow low powered edh to use a sideboard for wish effects and lesson cards, or lower starting live to 30) to make the formats distinct, but essentially compatiple.
Rule 0
@@joshholmes1372 Rule 0 is only realy a thing if you have a semi fixxed playgroup. If your access to edh is lgs´s or online gaming you are effectively out of luck.
I hear you, but that tells people they aren't allowed to have a casual game if they like combos or have a potential combo card in the deck.
Casual, to me at least, is a mindset more than the decks being played
@@simplesandcastle1182 and i agree with that, but thats also exactly why its extremely hard to regulate outside of playgroups
Video is 40 min long, was published 8 minutes ago, and people are already saying Tomer is wrong lol.
I'll wait til I finish the video before I decide if I agree with him or not.
EDIT: Surprise, I agree with Tomer. I usually do. It really sucks being that guy in my friend group that tries to keep the power-level down low when the awesome new cards come out because I feel like the fun police. No one wants to sit through someone else's fifteen minute turn every game, tho.
welcome to the internet. people are ridiculous.
Because he is wrong this card isn't designed for commander it was designed and put into a set specificity for modern.
@@user-fq2jv3ds7hif it was designed for modern than its a mistake for modern too because its homogenizing the format
Video still shorter than my opponents' average Nadu turn
They are probably bots or children. Don’t engage with them
The issue I have with Nadu is just how awful it is to play and vs since the loops are non deterministic so you have to play through it all since they might whiff and not be able to win the game and it takes 20 years for the combo to go off
Wait... So you do not like watching forever-turns? Not even if I put in hundreds of game actions that have little impact on the game outcome? You must be crazy! The best thing about playing Magic is when you don't get to play magic!
@@goliathsteinbeisser3547yeah cause nexus was fun the first time
Its also TERRIBLE to watch on the pro tour. Today was just agonizingly boring.
I miss the days when EDH was a background format you played here and there.
Nadu reminds me of Oko, Thief of Crowns in that some minor tweaks to the card probably would have made it acceptable (e.g. like how Oko probably would have been fine if its starting loyalty wasn't so high). If you only had to target Nadu instead of "creatures you control have", if the card was limited to spells instead of spells and abilities, if it was a scry versus a draw, if the lands came into play tapped, etc.
What makes it so broken is Nadu could have all of those revisions and it would still be a good commander.
Oko doesn't live in the command zone and doesn't turn the game into solitaire.
If it didnt trigger off of opponents and your effects
Its really frustrating to kill nadu (and you will lose if you don't) and they just hit a land off the top that they use to protect nadu AND get another trigger.
oko’s problem isn’t the starting loyalty, it’s the speed he gains it. Oko needed to have the elk be a -1 or a 0 at most, and the food to be a +1. I play timeless and okos easily get to 11+ loyalty if you don’t have a clean answer to them.
@@surfinggarchomp2820
You're not wrong, but neither is op. If Oko started with 2 loyalty, elking an opponent's creature gives them a 3/3 that can one shot Oko.
Lower loyalty isn't as good as Oko elking being a -1, but it helps.
Chulane should be part of the conversation too
Oh Tomer don't be silly.... The Kaldra commander will just be the full assembled avatar on a legendary creature, you won't even need to run the pieces, it will even create tokens of them XD
'not all products are for you' How do I know which products are for me then??
Did not expect the 40 minute teardown but go off king
I've had quite a lot of difficulty with commander. I build a lot of decks, like, a LOT. Mostly because I have the time to build, proxy, and cut(i'm doing it right now), but I find myself being drawn to not building things revolving around older cards, because I know they won't match up against the continually improving decks my opponents bring.
I always wonder how Mark can be so confident about the ratio of kitchen table to event-going people. Like since a kitchen table person isn't likely to see a MTG poll in order to respond, how could he gather that data short of something fallible like querying if the same name on a credit card shows up at an FNM or something.
I mean, it is just statistically true. Most people dont care much for the formats or meta, they just buy a couple every now and again and play a couple games with their buddies, like a board game. It's honestly strange to me to see invested players needing such an indepth definition for what a casual player is. It's the same with literally every hobby: most people in a hobby are very casual, surface level enjoyers of it, because it's much easier and more accessible to do that than get seriously invested.
I myself have been playing magic since innistrad and yeah, I've never gone to a single event ever. Just playing with my friends here and there. I don't need all the official whatevers to have fun with a neat game.
I have never met one of those mythical table kitchen people.
@imperialcitizen4811 "Just statistically true" based on what exactly? Unless your definition of a casual Magic player is anyone who has ever bought a pack, I don't see how you reach this definition of "casual player."
Most players start at an LGS in my experience, and those players likely spend WAY more over time than casual players. It just makes sense to cater to invested players rather than just make everything a commander set.
@@marshallscotif you have played a game of magic in the past and you wouldn't despise playing another game sometime in the future you're a casual player
The realization that Commander is basically Brawl both blew my mind and makes me never want to play a game of Commander again.
No brawl is the bullshit wizards did to commander
Commander came first and was honest in it's living but has been poisoned by wotc
It's the curse of becoming the flagship format.
this is why pretty recently, my playgroup has started shifting back to how commander used to be where you just grab cards from your collection and play, not buying whole decks of tcg player etc, and it has been way more fun actually seeing cards you don't get to see every day
I would love to do this but I'd have to get atleast 3 others onboard and that's the hard part 😂
It's bittersweet to hear you reach the same conclusion I reached about 3 years ago. It's that moment where you don't feel good saying, "I told you so..." because nobody wins.
Lol and yet
@@RG-wv3gt hence the "bittersweet"
My land-ristocrats deck has been so inundated with hyper specific cards this year
Nadu does exactly what i was afraid chulane would do.
I wouldnt even say older cards.
Commander legends cards from less than 5y ago are already taking a beating.
My friend cracked Nadu at draft and decided to make a deck using it not understanding why the rest of our group was dreading someone deciding to build it. Their "casual" build still regularly wins by turn 6 just due to overwhelming resources unless the table dogpiles the Nadu player or so(me)one is playing stax. There's also a lot of arms race play going on in my general area where people are running limited interaction having the mindset that "if I'm the problem the table needs to respond to me" instead. It's leading to every deck requiring the newest most busted cards, which is driving me to play things I don't enjoy just to have a game last more than 5 turns. Unfortunately, a lot of people don't see that mindset as an issue, but me playing Lavinia stax as a response to it is "problematic."
I don't think that the problem with Nadu is the effect of the card but how insanely undercosted it is. Nadu is a 5 or 6 mana spell, making it only 3 mana was just plain ridiculous and a massive oversight.
And now they've also announced that Duskmourn will be released on the 27th of September - just like 8 weeks from the release of Bloomburrow, so we will start getting previews and stuff for Duskmourn basically right after the release of Bloomburrow. Releases don't have any room to breathe anymore and as a player you don't have time to delve into the new cards and experiment, it's just previews after previews after previews and cards that are more and more optimized to be powerful. Oh, you are excited about a cool card you found for your deck in Bloomburrow, just you wait, next week we will announce three more cards that are even more powerful. Meanwhile the lore side is also getting less and less time and attention. They get good writers and then give them like two weeks to write two installments of the story that have to contain all of the events in the new set.
Love this kind of long form, well reasoned and passionate video essays about a particular subject! Keep it up!
The entire video I was screaming "This same problem is happening to Yu-Gi-Oh!"
It's hard to support an eternal format without power creep, because WOTC and Konami need to create an incentive for players to buy/play new cards (not just always the old ones). One way to do that is rotation, the other is power creep.
I’d rather have rotations then power creep, I’m tired of turn 0 grief, and thoughtseize. Tired of ragavan, tired of free casting in general.
They powercreep the current sets too. The whole "we use set rotation to keep things balanced" went out the window years ago. They keep printing power crept cards anyway.
That is why it is bad when everyone abandoned competitive because we need both that and EDH or WOTC ruins EDH with power creep.
Love the bird on his head 😂
Nadu is a warning sign of things to come, a herald of the power creep not a one-off mistake.
thumbnail is extremely funny in low definition
"Nadu is everything wrong with commander" I couldn't agree more with the title of the video.
Lol, right. These bait and switch videos...
How someone can defend what 99% of what everyone dislikes always baffles me.
@@klaiken989not 99%, maybe like 10% of people don’t like Nadu.
Most people actually really love Nadu because people like strong cards. Most people are casual and don’t care.
@@entertainmentinc9735 While I agree that its probably only like 10% of players who actively complain about the card, I also don't think that means the other 90% of players do like him. I think most people probably haven't fully decided yet, and it'll probably take a lot more people playing against it to see what the general opinion is. Players love strong cards, but a strong card has to both be strong and fun to play/play against to positively impact the format.
@@klaiken989this wasn't a defence of nadu though? This was pointing out nadu is a symptom of current commander design, and how that has changed over time. He never said nadu wasn't a poorly made card, hell he pointed out how it can be called a design mistake by the definition of some of the people at wizards. The title isn't a bait and switch, it's "nadu is a problem, here's how this has happened"
"Nadu, Who Ruins Brawl" is my new reason to ALT+F4 Arena right after finding my first match of the day
Nadu doesn’t really fit in MH3 limited. Blue/Green is Eldrazi and he puts cards into hand instead of drawing them for Blue. Pretty obvious it was intended for commander.
putting cards into hand is better than drawing, that's part of the power creep
@@wesleywyndam-pryce5305they’re talking about limited. The Dimir archetype cares about drawing cards so it doesn’t work well with that. Not that all rares have to be designed for limited, but that’s what they are talking about
No, it was made for modern. And in that format, it's looking extremely powerful but also probably fine, creating new archetypes without destroying old ones, exactly what modern players wanted out of modern horizons.
Pretty obvious it was designed for Modern, hence the name of the set.
I mean he’s not the only one that doesn’t fit MH3 limited. Phlage, Kudo, Rosheen and Abstruse Appropriation don’t fit their respective archetypes either.
You spoke so elegantly for this to just come off the top. Well done on this video. A little history combined with present day examples.
One thing I feel isn't mentioned nearly enough about the "this product just might not be for you" approach is... How tf do I know that before paying attention to it? This product might not be for me sure but if it is I would def like to know
The playgroup I was in at the time Brawl came out LOVED it.. Almost every game in between league pairings was Brawl instead of EDH for like two or three months. And then the first rotation time came up and every ounce of interest evaporated over night.
This was my experience too. Especially with those who don't play arena enough to earn gold/wildcards at a decent rate
I'm kinda amazed that they haven't allowed *any* legendary to be your commander, yet. That would be some hilarious power creep, I'd be tossing Westvale Abbey into my command zone SO FAST. 🤣
I know its not that popular in USA, but in Europe we also have another format called Duel Commander. Nadu didn't past the 1st week of tournaments.
It was so degenerate he was about to engulf the whole format by himself. We even had tournament made for 256 people which were boycotted because of Nadu (less than 90 players came).
People just refused to play against that.
Can we just admire something for a quick moment. WOTC messed up 3 times in a row and 3 times it was a Simic card. Oko, then Uro, then Nadu. 3 cards which were banned in multiple format, ofc we reasons...
Its exciting and refreshing to see a popular content creator share what I feel is the genuine sentiment of the MTG community at large.
I'd like to remind anyone that feels stressed about this to remember that breaks can be helpful!
On the more cards less brewing option. I came too a point that there is so many option that playing the 10th or 15th option for an archetype feel real cool while still being playable . I like prosper but i enjoy Doc Aurlock a lot more I feel UNIQUE ! I have to work for it. Wich is different than building an archetype from scratch but still feel great. Creativity is still present just in a different way.
Yeah, my problem is that I need to run 10+ spot removal , because every commander in my local shop is Kos.
Really enjoyed this video Tomer, and it articulates a similar feeling I've been having with commander. I could go on for hours about my feelings, but that's too much typing lol. Commander is still very fun and my favorite way to play magic, but it definitely has changed since I started playing
Power creep, release creep, and complexity creep all combine together to form that most powerful force:
"Nah, there's about 50,000 other hobbies I could have, so I think I'll go do that instead. It will also probably have less creeps."
This was a cool video, Tomer!
"Soft-rotate the format" as 20% of the decks going into the Modern Pro Tour are Nadu xD. And in second at 10% is Ruby Storm.
Love thw hat. Love the hot takes! Youre spittin fire!
In YGO, it was a bluebird. Once again after a couple decades and moving to a new game it has followed me.
A man wearing a bird cannot be wrong.
You absolutely hit the nail on the head!
One of the best commander videos ever.
Loved the frankness, you bring up very good points
How adorable is Tomer with that bird hat, like, c’mon. And, good points made about the unwanted slippery slopes of commander-centric card design. 👍
Great video! I wholeheartedly agree with everything Tomer, thanks for putting this out there
What we differ is that I have stopped having fun playing commander and then stopped playing. And I'm actually glad I did it
,,Just edict , just edict " - a great musician
Favorite video from you Tomer. Very well said
I like the idea of more “video essay” style content from Tomer. In the future, maybe a little bit shorter, though there are good points raised here. I salute you, sir, for committing to the bird hat all video.
There needs to be a keyword database app that immediately brings up what it does.
Came for the bird. Stayed for the bird.
It's such a bummer, man. I've been playing Commander since like 2012, 2013 where all my decks were just piles of cards I had. Whenever I'd brew decks, I had a few personal favorite pet cards I'd always stick in there, whether or not they actually fit. Now I just feel like I've gotta tune my decks more and more to keep them satisfying, and it's so lame.
I've reached the point where I'm almost exclusively trying to build weird jank because Good Decks have lost a lot of their charm.
Amazing viewpoints on mtg and hasbro. Thank you. I was entertained, so don't be so hard on yourself. It was all great information to have.
This should be a required training video for new (and existing) Casual Play Design members at WotC.
Counterpoint: this card wasn't designed for commander and the legendary part is actually a restriction for eternal formats.
We really feel the rotation feel in my playgroup :s I love to play modern and commander, but my commander group all sold all their collection a year ago because it was impossible to keep up
There needs to be a modern tournament where with 2 weeks of advanced notice that the tournament will not allow any card from any Modern Horizons set.
32:20 YES! I like finding synergies and forgotten cards that work well, and not to be printed auto includes
Yep, one of my favorite parts of brewing in commander is finding new homes for sign post draft uncommons that I'm fond of. But with the current march towards powering up the format, running those sign post uncommons are becoming a hindrance. I'm just... sad.
It’s so funny to me that I got the Desert Bloom precon, because a self-mill landfall deck sounded fun, has already had cards printed that I feel power creep cards that came in the precon. Rampant frogantua feels like it was meant for the desert deck but was slotted into Omo instead
Thanks for saying what we're all thinking
I really appreciate the continuous nods you made to the positives of modern Commander product design while also addressing the “costs” to what said continuous releases bring.
You only mentioned it in passing, but the closing space for auto-includes/staples/archetypal cards is definitely what I feel the most while brewing.
Completely agree with everything.
Tomer: excellent 👌 treatise about the problems facing Nadu.
No notes! i agree emphatically.
Tomer uncovered the joy of EDH with his idea of Budget Commanders. I find the game is way way more fun to try and build something cool and fun for like 150 bucks. You play cards people almost never see and do things people almost never see. It's a lot more fun, for me, than the same 60 cards in every deck, 30 something lands, and maybe 10 surprises.
Make the challenge more interesting with an even more restrictive budget like $50 or even $25.
3 mana 3/4 with flying? I bet a playset of vanilla cards with those stats would cause problems on their own. Let's just give it card draw on etb or whenever it attacks. That still would have been good. Sheesh.
Described my thoughts on the current state of EDH perfectly. I'd really like a time locked version of the format. Like nothing printed after 2012 or so. Then they can make reprint sets for new players to have access to those cards.
Here I was thinking Richard was the bird maxie...
I think the biggest problem with cards designed for commander is that they need to be extremely impactful considering you have 3 opponents to beat, that is fine when the cards is restricted to a multiplayer format like the battlebond lands, but becomes a problem with cards made for commander that are ok in the format, and absolutely busted in 1v1 - true name nemesis, broadside bombardiers and especially the whole Initiative mechanic
Very well thought out. Thank you for making this video. Nadu is broken ( says the Voja player) 😅
Ive been thinking a lot recently about how you can solve the logical paradox of casual eternal magic.
I love brewing, i love weird drawbacks and build arounds. How do you create a format where staples arent everywhere? I have no idea.. one thing i was considering was a point system ljke Warhammer. But of course that adds a lot of complexity and the power of cards can be relative.
Regarding precons, they could literally be like 60 card precons with no new designs. This creates playable and powerful decks for new players without diluting jank pet cards. Of course the issue is sales
"Weasels of the Coast" lol perfect slip of the tongue
I wish Nadu was at least gruul or selesnya. It would make things way better for both edh and cedh
Hello, I enjoyed your video. I’d like to add my opinion to the discussion. I agree with some of your points, especially product fatigue. It’s crazy how much stuff comes out these days. I started playing mtg through edh in 2020. It was already a lot then and it’s so much now.
I have been hearing a lot of talk about power creep recently and I think it’s being overstated. I’ve been playing for a few years now and while most sets might have a couple of cards that I’d like to have the vast majority of powerful cards that I’m interested in are much older cards.
The reprints in a set are almost always what is most important for me. I wish they’d print shocks and fetches into the ground. Better lands are significant upgrades for decks especially once you get 3+ colors but they’re not particularly exciting to buy. I stick to mono-colored and dual-colored decks a lot to try and mitigate this because I don’t want to spend much money on lands.
The games at my lgs that are extremely one-sided are most frequently caused by someone playing with old power cards, fast mana is especially egregious here. Powerful commanders tend to come with a reputation and are met with people either refusing to play against them or the player getting heavily targeted. Most of those commanders are somewhat older too, in the 2016-2020 range.
I expect that Nadu will end up being treated the same as those others and many of those are stronger than Nadu. I do think Nadu has an issue with taking super long turns but if the Nadu player is going off and no one has an answer you can probably just concede and move to a new game. Nadu is not the only commander taking really long turns anyway.
Another you topic you mentioned is the more specific commander designs that are pushing out old janky ways of playing fringe strategies. I think this is a pretty nuanced point and you handled it good hitting the pros and cons. I personally think that more specific legendary creature designs is a more interesting direction than generically designed ones.
Specific designs tend to be less powerful overall than the generic ones and in my experience they often enable a strategy that lets me get really creative with decks. I spend a lot of time with every deck I make doing different searches on scryfall and I often find lots of old cool cards that fit in.
I built a deck with the new Alela and sure it has a good chunk of new cards, but it also has older cards from Lorwyn that are on the fairy theme and do interesting things.
Anyway if anyone reads this thanks for putting up with my long winded rambling. Thanks for the video!
Couldn't agree more. Great video, hope someone at wizards listens to this and takes it seriously!
Is that The Expanse series on the shelf? Love those books (and the show).
Back around 2018, I had a love of Werewolf tribal & ran an EDH deck headed by Samut Voice of Dissent paired with Angels & jank cards referring to "Dogwalking" because I was a dogwalker at the time & loved my janky brew. (Skeleton Key was my favorite flavor card) Then Tovolar came out & I dropped white to make a better Gruul Werewolf deck that to this day (Jun 2024) still holds out, but definitely doesn't have the personality of my original idea.
*Thanks for the Content!*
I could see you thinking, "Finally a use for this hat!" but maybe you've had other uses for it
You rock Tomer. This is what we are all thinking
I'm one of those kitchen table to EDH players, still never done any LGs event, just drafts with friends at homes. Playing off and on since Ice Age. I do feel like Commander got worse once Wizards' Eye of Sauron focused its attention on it, since the first precons
The points around 28:27 I really agree with. It's annoying that every new set has to have a new mechanic. I wish they would just design more with old mechanics because I feel like it could still be interesting.